Be a Good Sacrifice

In the Old Testament we read that God required His people
to offer sacrifices to him. This was true from the very beginning of man.
We know from Genesis Chapter Four that animal sacrifices were used. Later
when Moses gives the Old Law to the Israelites, animal sacrifice is commanded.

The animal to be sacrificed was to be an unblemished animal.
This means that the animal was not to have any deformity on the outside.
The animal was also to be unblemished on the inside. The priest would cut
the animal completely in half. He would inspect it to make sure that it
was the kind of animal that God would accept. Such an animal was considered
clean in the eyes of God.

Now we know that many of the sacrifices were done as a
representation of when Christ would give his life as a sacrifice for our
sins. Christ lived a perfect life and was completely unblemished in his
spiritual life.

The Greeks had words to describe animal sacrifices because
they also sacrificed animals. But they were not offering their sacrifices
to the true God. One of the words they used is used in Hebrews 4:13. “Neither
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things
are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

The word “opened” was used to refer to the act of slicing
the animal’s throat when the animal was first being sacrificed. And then
the animal would be cut completely in half so that the animal could be
inspected.

When we come to worship God, we must make sure that we
are clean on the inside. God will not accept our worship if we are not.
Just like the animal that was not perfect would be thrown away and not
given as a sacrifice, so God will not accept our worship if we are not
spiritually perfect. Of course, we know that Christ’s blood can make us
spiritually perfect in God’s eyes. So we must make sure that we are in
touch with Christ’s blood so that it can cleanse us and make us perfect.

The only way to know how to have Christ’s blood make us
perfect is to study God’s Word, the Bible. In the Bible God tells us what
we must do to contact Christ’s blood. Make sure you can present yourself
as a good living sacrifice when you come to worship God (and remember that
not every thing you do is worship).

Do Not Lose Your Grip

When I was growing up I watched a lot of cartoons. It was
not unusual in a cartoon for a character to fall over the edge of a cliff.
The character many times would grab hold of a branch of a small tree to
keep from falling. The character would hold on to this branch until someone
would rescue him.

You could say that the character held firm to the branch.
His grip was sure and steadfast because he did not want to fall. He was
not going to let go of that branch no matter what happened.

We are to be that way with God. We are not to let go of
our hope of living with God in heaven forever. The word in the Greek which
could mean “not losing your grip” is used in Hebrews 6:18-19. There we
read, “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God
to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to
lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of
the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the
veil.”

The word for “not lose your grip” is the word “stedfast.”
We must never let go of our hope for heaven. We must keep a tight grip
on it. And the only way to do that is to always study our Bible and obey
what it says. We must always obey God and do what He wants us to do. That
is the only way to keep our grip on our hope. If we obey Him, He is faithful
to take us to heaven one day. If we do not obey Him, we will lose our grip
on our hope and fall.

Until next time, keep studying your Bible. Make sure that
you keep a tight grip on your hope. And if any of this is hard to understand,
ask an adult to help you.